I may have a residency coming up at a local bar and they have a weekly club night, Most of the time the DJ plays all top 40 with one dubstep song an hour, I have never warmed up a crowd in my life but I would have the whole night to play errr 10-1:30 So how do I go from no dancefloor to a fuller one with a top 40 crowd. The said I can play remixes of more radio stuff, so I'm not sure I figure since it's already 10 I'd only need to really warmup for about an hour to an hour and a half. What kind of music is expected for that(Generally i don't go out till long after a warmup and when I do I never actually hear what they are playing all of the sudden the dancefloor will just fill) So any expierenced djs currently doing a top 40 crowd know how to get em ready to sweat? Thanks!
i hate to say it but any of the new david guetta stuff, its all house based with popular artist like rhianna and such, flo rida works well too.... and depending on what your using (dvs cdjs etc.) loops are your friends... top 40 crowds arent really all that concerned with mixing... they want the tracks they hear on radio... so think builds and echo/flanger transitions.. top 40 crowds also expect to hear you on the mic a bit.. so beef up on that as well... dont be afraid to drop older top 40 tracks as they will still move a crowd...maybe even more so than the newer ones as theyve been around a lil longer and people know all the words and will swing along.... and if all else fails.. black eyed peas will pull people to the dance floor
Right now I have the luxery of running off of a midi controlle with a laptop set up(Can't afford cdjs right now or I'd totally take em to avoid the "YOU HAVE A LAPTOP YOU HAVE EVERY SONG IN EXISTANCE STIGMA!") I figured I'd start with something like usher or something a little more downtempo and move into house kind of a deal, After playing a few shows I learned not to hyper focus so much on transitions because I've done some crazy live mashups and fader cuts and nobody cares. Turn on levels people go crazy......I'm learning over time what's working but I've never had to warm up, I've always just had a crowd ready to go. Thanks though for some ideas......Time to go look at the last 5 years of billboard charts...le sigh.
I've played a lot of Top 40 gigs in the past and I've generally never really had to warmup much at all, so long as there is people in the venue. I used to play after a band, so generally the trick was to get as many people back up dancing as the band tended to clear the floor. So I would generally start with a song that had an incredibly easy to identify start, which sometimes meant dropping a radio edit to avoid the banging intro, then usually girls would flock to the dancefloor, men following then usually I'd have a full floor right till the end. Top 40 and warmup don't go well together imo. Oh and another tip, try avoid too many top 40 remixes, I've noticed they just piss people off, or you'll just get requests to play the "proper version"
I feel like I found a good solution for a set list of a top 40 crowd, when its not your ideal style, however id love further advice and input about it. My ideal style of music is progressive house but I know thats not what most of the top 40 bar crowd wants. I own pretty much every top 40 radio play track from the last year and keep them in a monthly format in playlists, but I notice thats not enough to fill a whole set. When warming up I usually use about a 80/20 ratio of top 40 classics songs (from Biggie Smalls to Fat Joe)/this years older top 40 (march and back), so I dont waste the good current top 40 songs when the place is full. At the end of the night I like to try to sneak a little bit of prog house music in, so I save top 40 house songs (like anything david guetta puts out...sigh) for the last of my top 40. That way i can make a smooth genre transition into more prog house. (nothing gets the venue going like Avicii-Levels of course). When im making the transition, sometimes I select a track with a long intro instrumental, get on the mic and say something like, "I Hope no one minds, but Im gonna play some F%$#ing house music up in here!!!" ...Said confidently, and depending on your crowd, will make them either go crazy on the dance floor or flock away from it. Just use good timing, and perhaps save it for the very end of the night after youve had the floor successfully packed for a while. That way if it fails, the venue cant blame you for not getting people on the dance floor since you already got them there successfully. Cheers from Boston -2SHAE!-
lol so funny. i feel like every DJ made this mashup. check mine out if u got a min...its alright and my serato glitched in the last hook http://www.mixcloud.com/2shae/2shae-believing-in-good-levels/
http://soundcloud.com/tylervulgar/bass-night-set Here is a set I did(In a nut shell had to try to remember some of what I played) at a non top 40 show. Now I'm being asked to do the exact opposite. top 40 is actually out of my comfort zone if that makes any sense. That's why i was asking if I needed to warm them up and kind of push them to the dance floor. It seems the real advice here is aim for the sluts and make em dance and everyone follows lmao.
my first lesson as a dj in a club was as follows find one girl on the dance floor, keep that one chic dancing and youve done your job same applies for top 40 only aim for more than one girl
its an easy one that take no imagination or skill (for the most part) and there for those you have limited technical knowledge or creativitey can pull it off, try this one if you get a chance and see what happens flo rida- low and tone loc-wild thang
